Work in Progress

This morning I took a strong pharmaceutical stimulant and will use the added energy and my newly focused attention span to write a novel which I will complete by tonight, when the drug has worn off. Now I am experiencing elation, my mood is soaring, and I can hardly type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. Yes, I must remember to tell the story of that time in Los Angeles fifty years ago when I came upon a coffee shop full of transvestites. And the altar boy story, don’t forget the one about the time I fell through the ice, or the cave in Mexico that was full of human excrement, and the monkey that broke into my room in Nicaragua. All this must be preserved and fitted neatly into a narrative!

Plot and structure do not come easily to me, but colorful details are a dime a dozen. Obviously the protagonist should be a thinly disguised version of me, and all the zany characters and outlandish happenings can easily be summoned from my memories, which now swirl about me like colorful mists.

The climax will involve a near-death experience, when I am comforted to learn that the soul persists after painlessly passing through the veil. In this novel I will experience true love, meet my soul mate, the one who was conceived with me in mind. I will be tempted by fame and fortune, but reject both in favor of more substantial and long-lasting pleasures.

As I write, I can imagine the movie that will be made. Johnny Depp can play me. But who will play me as a boy? As an old man? I can’t deal with that now, I have to keep typing.

To whom will my protagonist disclose his deepest and darkest thoughts? A sidekick. Dennis Hopper would have played him in the movie, but he’s been gone for a while now. The new American Friend. Weird little guy who is humble to the point of maybe being retarded. A good listener. He doesn’t judge. At the climax he is suddenly and unexpectedly killed in a horrific accident. “Good-bye little buddy. And thanks.”

Will any of the women who come and go throughout this story be virtuous and honest, or will they all be deviously addicted to silly dreams of soul mate romance? Will they all be in therapy, or will one reject the popular paradigm? In order to appeal to modern readers and viewers, at least one female character must prove to be strong and decisive, but there is no need to make her a romantic interest.

Oops, I’ve done it now. My thoughts are racing so far ahead that I’ve lost track of my center, my core. My monkey mind is all that I can access, and it’s chattering away like bad talk radio, like a taxi dispatcher’s radio squawking constantly even if no one is listening.

Maybe Jack Kerouac had ingested a different form of speed when he wrote “On the Road.” The continuous roll of paper that fed through his typewriter kept getting inked., but my digital diary is winding down. It sputters, and then it stops.